With the sound of the Steve Miller Band’s “Stuck in the Middle With You” still playing from a Bluetooth speaker at the front of the Windsor Care Center’s activity room, Crystal Langford weaves through a crowd of residents, bowing to each one to thank them for their dance. She’s wearing Pepto-Bismol pink scrubs that match the streaks of pink in her bright blonde hair; she’s smiling ear-to-ear.
Crystal is the restorative coordinator at Windsor Care Center, but her duties go far beyond what her name tag says.
Though she was given a job at Windsor Care Center on the spot 19 years ago, Crystal at first thought that she would only be around for a short time.
“The residents and staff have kept me here,” she says. “When I moved here it was just me and my two children, so this facility became my family. Most of the people I know here are through the nursing home. Everybody I know is related to the nursing home in some way.”
In an effort to prevent falls among residents, Crystal started an aerobics activity called “Move it or Lose it.” For 30 minutes, she dances along with residents, helping them move their bodies to maintain a range of motion.
The same wrist that she extends to her patients is in a splint. She injured it pulling carpet out of her home, which is across the street from the nursing home.
Crystal’s desire to care for others started at a young age, caring for her single mother with multiple sclerosis. She proudly says her mother was entirely responsible for raising her. “She always said do big things,” Crystal says.
“From 5 years old I was a caretaker, and I hardly knew it,” she says, citing her mother as an inspiration for going into the medical field. She recalls placing sandbags on her mother’s legs and having to perform the Heimlich maneuver when her mother was choking on breakfast cereal.
“You saved my life, Crystal,” she remembers her mother saying.
When Crystal’s 12-hour shift at the nursing home ends, you can still hear her voice for some time after, darting in and out of residents’ rooms to check in and tell them that she loves them.
“I love each and every one of them,” she says with tears in her eyes. “They’re my family. They’re my people. Yeah, they’re my people.”